


Sweet Disbelief

by December



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-16 06:07:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17544176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/December/pseuds/December
Summary: When the King Elessar first kissed him, Steward Faramir was quite certain it was by mistake.





	Sweet Disbelief

When the King Elessar first kissed him, Steward Faramir was quite certain it was by mistake.

Even as Aragorn held him close and tight, his mouth gliding hungry-sweet against Faramir's, it all seemed somehow improbable.

That they were alone in the royal rooms on the cusp of nightfall was immaterial, a random coincidence, naught more.

His body was swift to respond with long-restrained zeal, and he had been embarrassed and wished to hide it, for his lord could not possibly mean to go that far.

Following a rushed, dizzying blur of hands, lips, caresses everywhere, he found himself on all fours on the edge of the bed, naked as if he had just come into this world. Aragorn fucking him fast and deep from behind, as though it was the most natural thing on earth. Which it had indeed felt like, such breathless, easy pleasure, the king's hands so firm and warm on his hips.

It had been surreal and yet made perfect sense, just as it had made perfect sense to be awoken all those nights ago from his fevered death-dreams and gaze up into the eyes of his healer, and love him on the spot. But this could not be. 

Unlike most secret things, which Faramir learned from the pages of forgotten books or the quiet talks with Mithrandir, the concept of carnal congress between men had been introduced through the banter of his brother's soldiers. Lewd jokes and half-hearted threats, never said in full seriousness, much like the drunken promises to strangle someone with their own intestines. This was one of those things that are technically possible but no one would think to actually do. Nevertheless, Boromir would swear and clap the culprit on the back of the head for putting evil notions into a young lad's mind.

When Faramir became captain, all talk of such obscenities in his presence disappeared altogether. The last he ever heard of it was father making a passing comment some years ago, on one of his fouler days, as to how in the company of Northern men one ought to worry less about the honour of one's wife and more about the safety of one's own arse. 

In the king's bed, he forgot to worry about anything at all. 

As always, Lord Aragorn knew what to do. Not only that - with an astounding absence of inhibition, he seemed unafraid to show the extent of either his desire or his delight. When Faramir glanced back over his shoulder, written in the king's face was the purest rapture he ever did see.

To know the pleasure his liege found in his body was a miraculous gift. So little effort it cost him, and the returns were so great. He did not hold back, letting himself make as much noise as he would, to leave no doubt for the king as to the excellence of his loving. 

"Oh, Faramir, I am so close," Aragorn had panted. And slowed himself right down, and reached down and around to grip Faramir's throbbing manhood, and fisted him with expert skill and frantic determination.

Until Faramir's thighs were trembling, and he was crying out in warning. Then Aragorn once more drove into him, with renewed urgency, and again, and again. Till he had no control over anything anymore, and sobbed his ecstasy, and felt himself pour hot over Aragorn's fingers, and Aragorn in turn slam into him and groan with the great relief of long-awaited completion.

Afterwards, they lay still. With Aragorn hugging him snugly from behind, the king's sleeping breath close on the back of Faramir's neck, bewilderment rose up in him like a desert storm.

The scent surrounding them was incredible. Musky, hypnotic, and like the home he had never known he had.

Over his shin, the older man's ankle was hooked as though in silent claim of kinship. Against the back of his thighs pressed the front of Aragorn's, so lean and hard with solid muscle. 

Without waking, Aragorn sighed contentedly and pulled Faramir closer still.

A shimmer of peaceful bliss tried, tentatively, to unfold in his chest. A bright future ahead, a cloudless sky ready to welcome the rise of a new day.

Faramir squeezed his eyes shut.

Quietly the Steward eased himself out from under the King's heavy arm, gathered his clothes from the floor, and saw himself out. 

He had noticed no pain in the high of the moment, but walking stirred up a raw, low-burning soreness. Halfway back to his quarters, he felt something warm and wet, but there was no way to tell whether it was sweat, blood, seed, or the oily ointment Aragorn had used to ease the way.

As his disobeying fingers battled with the lock, Faramir thanked the Valar they had decided against keeping guards at the doors of private rooms. He did not know what he would do if someone had to see him like this, and at this hour, too.

He had never quite outgrown the austere ways of his upbringing, for a lord born into a time of war could not afford to go soft with luxury, and his quarters were cold. 

Without undressing, without undoing the bed, Faramir lay on the fur-trimmed blanket and flipped the loose edge over himself. 

He stared at the wall, grasping for the familiar landmarks of his inner world. He would find his way back, and come morning it would all return to normality, somehow. 

But the fresh memory of Aragorn's mouth shoved everything out of the way and sat square atop his senses. Who could have possibly foreseen that this stern, weather-worn man could kiss like this? 

As though he called Faramir's very spirit forth from his body, and made it dance in the breath of a space between their lips - made it glide to the tip of the tongue and fall from an impossible height to once again plunge into the all-encompassing ocean of his passion.

To be kissed like this was alone enough to show him everything, give him everything, be his forever. 

Faramir exhaled heavily. It would be reassuring to find contrition, but the deeper he dug, the sweeter his transgression tasted, and already his body was longing, and he yearned to once again be in the royal bed, to feel those all-knowing hands on his skin.

To work that look of blessed relief into the king's features, be so close to him, feel him melt, drown in him.

It would never happen again. Of course not. It could not. That it had happened in the first place already defied comprehension. How will he live with this hunger now that it has been awoken into existence?

The way he loved his king, to be perfectly honest, had never been quite right.

Ever there ran a strange undercurrent, ever a flame flickered where there should have been nothing to feed it. The devotion of a vassal to his liege was meant to be a thing simple and straightforward, like the wide highway in broad daylight. He, instead, had wandered onto an untrodden path through the enchanted woods, full of wonders and shadow alike. Beautiful eerie melodies whispering out of nowhere, faerie lights twinkling just out of sight - and it was his guilty little secret that he actually preferred it that way.

In the littlest things he would find hidden meanings. Sitting in Aragorn's drawing room, playing chess for hours, well past nightfall - was that not, in its own way, a most intimate thing? Aragorn bending over the board with the look of utmost concentration on his lean face, humming to himself, glancing up at Faramir every now and again to try and read his plan. Faramir fighting to keep a straight face, for he could see the mischievous mirth dancing in his lord's eyes, and it made him so inexplicably happy he wanted to laugh out loud. 

Or escaping deep into the forests over the River with him, pretending to be rangers again. Long ago Boromir had had a hunting hut built in the foothills for the two of them, and Faramir liked to think his brother would have been glad for its new lease on life. The misty evenings, with just enough promise of upcoming autumn to make it so toasty to huddle into their cloaks, were filled with the smoke of Aragorn's pipe-weed, and scents of wild herbs he took the chance to collect, and the stories of his travels which seemed to evolve with every retelling. When Faramir felt irreverent enough to point this out, Aragorn would only nudge him in the ribs and take another pull on his pipe. 

Then there was the unspoken glory of those more sombre moments. Sunrises were early in summer, and Aragorn would come to the Court of the Fountain, high above the still sleeping city, to keep a silent vigil over the East. Waiting for the blazing disc to make its climb over the blushing mountains. And he would have it that Faramir stood beside him in that stark, crisp hour, gazing upon that place where once lay only death and despair. 

When the day was done, sometimes they would return to watch the Valar paint the western skies with colours of wildfire as the silence of rest settled upon the land. Their eyes would meet, and Faramir would see the hope in his King's heart, and happy pride, and unbending determination. But also the glint of deep-rooted apprehension. It was a great task that stood before them, and to restore the splendour of Gondor was impossible without reflecting on the majesty of the Númenor that had been, and that in turn was inseparable from the heartbreak and disgrace of its fall. He had rejoiced and marvelled that his mere presence seemed to hearten his liege.

They could do none of that anymore, not after this. 

The softest, most unassuming sound stirred him out of the reverie.

Only his overwrought nerves, what else, but his feet were already carrying him to the door.

If there had yet remained a sliver of hope that he had imagined it all, to see Lord Aragorn again, and on his doorstep of all places, sealed everything with instant finality. To look into the king's grey eyes was a lightning exploding within his stomach, and he knew he had failed to rule his features in that moment. 

Before he could open his mouth, Aragorn raised his hand.

"Faramir, if you do not wish me here, one word, and I'll be gone."

"You Majesty, you are always wel-"

Aragorn winced at the formal address.

"Please. I am not here as your king."

Faramir pursed his lips and nodded, as if he could just go and switch out of seeing his king as king.

"Of course. Would you like to come in?"

"I'd be loath to impose..." Aragorn glanced both ways down the corridor, clearly equally loath to be indiscreet.

"Please," Faramir stepped aside and opened the door wider for him.

Aragorn drew his thick robe tight around himself as he stepped inside. It seemed he wanted to comment on the chill, but thought the better of it.

"My lord, what can I-"

"No, no, you need not do anything for me. I... I honestly don't know where to..."

"I am sorry."

Aragorn looked at him with - defeat? reproach? Suddenly it was so hard to read him, so hard to think. 

"What are you sorry for, Faramir?" he asked quietly. 

That was not really what the king wanted to know. Rather why Faramir thought he had anything to be sorry for at all - and what it would take for him to not be. Questions the answers to which the steward himself would have liked to find. 

"My lord, you have come to see me - you had wanted to tell me something?"

He motioned for them to walk further inside, to not have Aragorn stand by the threshold like an unwelcome guest. The king hesitated, visibly doubting that this invitation would still hold once he had spoken his mind.

"Well alright, there is no way around it, I suppose. Faramir, I had dreamed for so long of making love with you, and then... It all happened so fast, and you seemed so eager, and I was so happy, and so I never stopped to make certain... Then I woke up - and you were gone. So I realised that perhaps I have done you a grave insult. Please, Faramir, do tell me if it - if any of it... Oh, Valar! Faramir, did you yield to me out of fealty?"

He never had thought his king could look so flustered, so vulnerable, and his heart went soft like butter in an oven. An urge panged him to take Aragorn by the hand. But the extraordinary intimacy that had passed between them so suddenly and so recently made it impossible to move. Faramir glanced down at Aragorn's hands, and remembered the magic of their touch on him. Remembered himself taking those fingers into his mouth, then those fingers on his engorged cock, between his bare buttocks, working their way in. He felt himself go red in the face. He wished to speak at ease and freely, but it would not come.

"My lord, you have done me no insult," he managed to say. 

Aragorn watched him expectantly. "But...?" 

"But... I am yet to make sense of what happened between us. Although I do think that fealty did help, if only in that if it were anyone else, I would have pushed him away before I had the chance to know if indeed I should. And I, too, have dreamt for a long time - I am not quite sure of what exactly, for I never had allowed myself to go into the detail."

"I see," Aragorn said carefully. "Well, do you wish me to leave you now?" 

Faramir closed his eyes. If only he could will his face to relax, to make the stiffness drain away. 

"That I do not. But I am afraid I have little to offer, and my rooms are cold."

"Well," Aragorn smiled, "perhaps that, something can be done about. Have you any wine?"

He did, and out of somewhere Aragorn found spices, and already the hearth in Faramir's bedroom was alight, and a cozy little cauldron hung over the flames. 

He stood over the simmering wine, giving it the occasional stir, when Aragorn came up from behind. 

"How is it coming along?" he asked, leaning to look over Faramir's shoulder. And as though it were the most natural thing, he also placed his palm lightly on Faramir's waist.

Faramir inhaled, wondering if such a small touch should muddle his thoughts this much. 

Why would Aragorn want him? Not that there was anything particularly wrong with him - but surely the High Lord of All Gondor could pick better? There was no shortage of noble maidens around, many of whom would be happy to die for the honour. And if the king indeed wished for a man, that too could be found in a package younger and fairer than Faramir, unmarred by war and sorrow. While if youth were not particularly important to Aragorn, then likewise he could get a more seasoned lover, better versed in pleasing a discerning lord. 

Aragorn must have shifted closer to him, for somehow Faramir was leaning his back against his front. The king placed his other hand over his steward's forehead, as though to calm a fever. 

"There is so much on your mind," he murmured. 

"I am sorry," Faramir said again, and again unsure for what. "It must be... I just, I do not understand." 

It was hard to breathe, but in a very good way. The aroma of the spiced wine was heady and rich, like a syrup of magic spilled through the air. He could not remember the last time it was so hot in his rooms. 

"What would help you understand, do you think?" 

He could not tell where his lord's voice was coming from. Against his hair, ear, neck?

It seemed that the older man beckoned him to, but it was equally possible that he himself turned around - so slowly, like through an afternoon daydream. 

Aragorn was so beautiful, his bright eyes so kind, so wise. 

Aragorn smiled at him, raised his hand, tucked a strand of Faramir's hair behind his ear. 

Before Faramir knew it, he was kissing his king deep on the mouth, demanding, aggressive. He had not known he had it in himself to kiss like this, to want like this. He tried to at once push the older man backwards towards the bed, and keep him close, which seemed the easiest to do by gathering fistfuls of his velvety robe. 

Aragorn seemed pleased and unsurprised, as he allowed himself to be felled onto the mattress, and pulled his younger lover down with him. 

He felt his own stubble scratchy against Aragorn's face. Aragorn's long fingers exploring the lines of his shoulders, kneading appreciatively the curve of his biceps. 

Aragorn did not rush this time, but neither did it take him too long to indicate the exact target of his interest. 

The touch of his hand through Faramir's breeches, feeling for the shape of the younger man's erection through the fabric, was surreally familiar. Faramir had never expected to be caressed here by a hand as large and strong as his own, but again, somehow it made sense. 

He could not believe how normal it felt, to be breathing each other's breath, touching his tongue to Aragorn's. It seemed his body knew before he did, and he found himself rolling aside and making room exactly when Aragorn made to crawl further onto the bed, to lie down properly alongside him.

He had lost a shoe somewhere along the way, and Aragorn jolted as Faramir's foot touched him on the shin.

"You are still so cold!" 

Faramir made to apologise, yet again, but Aragorn placed his fingers over the man's lips. The king's eyes were full of merriment, of warmth, of the knowledge that there was no need to hurry. "Shall we get some of that wine into you?"

Aragorn's robe had come all but undone, and when he stood up he let it slide off. It turned out he had nothing on underneath save for his breeches, which too left little to the imagination. 

The lines of his back, his long legs, his arse, were perfect. He seemed to sense Faramir's eyes on him and half-turned his head, enough for Faramir to see him grin. 

His king, half-naked and fully aroused, was in his bedroom in the middle of the night, pouring him hot wine while orange glints of the fire-light danced on Aragorn's skin and in his hair with its royal dusting of silver. How in the world could this be.

His chest was heaving, bursting with the sweetest hunger, but there were still so many questions.

As Aragorn, smiling, perched on the edge of the bed and cast an admiring glance down Faramir's frame as he handed him the goblet, Faramir frowned.

"My king, do you prefer men?"

Aragorn raised his brows, as though he had expected all of Faramir's obvious bewilderment to express itself into something more complex than just that.

"I don't think we should call it that, my Steward. Although we certainly can if you so wish, as I absolutely do prefer you - and you are, or course, among many other things, a man. But this heart of mine is a wild thing, and heeds no law written by the Edain, or for the Edain. Whether a mortal, or a deathless Elf, a maiden or man - it will love whom it will, and not much I can do about that."

Faramir considered this. Although in a way his heart was glad, yet more questions were invited by this answer.

"Then, my lord," he said seriously, "if you could love a maiden just as well, would that not be better? You could not beget an heir with me, and is it my place to rob you of that joy?"

A strange sadness touched Aragorn's eyes, like the memory of a distant frost from a winter long ago. He took the cup back from Faramir and finished the wine. "You are not robbing me of anything that was not already lost, my most thoughtful friend. And of course you are right, that is not how one gets heirs - but life is long, we will think of something."

Faramir knew then that he wanted to kiss the taste of the wine from his king's lips. Wanted to kiss him till he forgot all the sadness in the world. Till he gasped and moaned in Faramir's arms, and knew nothing but wild joy. 

Maybe tomorrow he would indeed wake up to see this impossible dream had never been - but so long as he held Aragorn, and Aragorn held him, it did not matter.

The End.


End file.
